This is the text of an eBay guide that I created in 2006. The guides are now orphaned pages that can only be found through an Internet search. eBay plans to delete the guides in April 2018.
This eBay guide was viewed approximately 4,500 times.
The Sally Baxter Girl Reporter Series by Sylvia Edwards was published
exclusively in the United Kingdom by World Distributors during the
1960s. The books are green and white and come with dust jackets.
During the 1970s, the first three titles were reissued in the picture
cover format by Redwing Library.
The Shirley Flight Air Hostess, Sara Gay Model Girl, and Kit
Hunter Show Jumper series were also published by World Distributors in
the United Kingdom.
List of Titles:
1.
The Runaway Princess
2.
The Mystery Heiress
3.
On Location
4.
In Canada
5.
In Australia
6.
African Alibi
7.
Underwater Adventure
8.
The Holiday Family
9.
The Lost Ballerina, 1960
10.
Hong Kong Deadline, 1960
11.
The Greek Goddess, 1960
12.
Festival Holiday, 1960
13.
The Shamrock Mystery, 1961
14.
Secret Island, 1961
15.
Strangers in Fleet Street, 1961
16.
The Golden Yacht, 1961
The first eight books in the series have no dates present on the copyright page, so the year of publication is unknown.
Availability
Since this series was published in the United Kingdom, nearly all
books that come up for sale originate in the United Kingdom, Australia,
and New Zealand. It appears that all of the titles went through about
the same number of printings and that multiple titles were issued
simultaneously. It is generally no more difficult to acquire the last
titles in the series as it is the earlier titles.
For more detailed information about the Sally Baxter Girl Reporter
Series and other World Distributors series, please visit my series book website.
3 comments:
On your Series Books page for the Sally Baxter novels, you mention a couple things that intrigue me. I'm about to start collecting this series and was wondering if you could clarify what you mean by a "difference in tone" in the later books. How would you describe the difference, and at what point in the series does it first become apparent? Also, I'm absolutely floored at the idea of a girls' series protagonist smoking cigarettes; I definitely want to snap up any titles in the Sally Baxter series where she smokes if for no other reason than the sheer bizarre novelty of it. Do you recall specific titles where she smokes, or roughly when in the series she first lights up? I'm not nearly as well-read in girls' series books as you are, but I've never encountered one where the protagonist smoked. So strange to think about in 2018; times have changed! :)
I can't remember any details since it has been over 10 years since I read any of the Sally Baxter books. Maybe someone who does remember will comment.
I haven’t read widely in the field, and I can't reply specifically to Danielle's question, but I believe that during the period 1920-1960 quite a number of UK girls’ series heroines were represented as smoking--not during the school years, but certainly (like Sally Baxter) soon afterwards. The central heroines of Elinor Brent-Dyer’s Chalet series took up smoking as a matter of course when they grew up. The career novel Margaret Becomes a Doctor (1957) actually advised teenagers (both female and male) to take up the habit if they were preparing to train in medicine, because it would help to counteract the smell of formaldehyde in the dissecting rooms.
The Sally Baxter books may have had multiple authors (I haven’t read enough of them to be sure), but her acquisition of smoking wouldn’t in itself be evidence of that. The Sally of the earliest books is still virtually a naïve schoolgirl; it would undermine her characterization to represent her as smoking at that age. The Sally of the later books has gained experience and has acquired a reputation as a skilled, knowledgeable rising journalist; to depict her as smoking was a quick, simple shorthand way of showing that she was now leading a fully adult life in all respects. (The apparently non-smoking Joey of the earliest Chalet books was certainly created by the same hand as the chain-smoking Joey of the later ones!)
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